


Hopeless

by multiversal (PthaloGreen)



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: F/F, amerikate - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 08:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10355793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PthaloGreen/pseuds/multiversal
Summary: Utterly exhausted, physically at her limit, and looking like shit, her hair fans out over your pillows in a way that looks nothing like you imagined. She looks like a ragged mess, hair matted and sitting weirdly in the way it does when it’s been in a ponytail for too long.She looks nothing like the fantasy you entertained back when you first met her, back before you gave up hoping.She just looks like Kate.Somehow, that’s better.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If logging into your old account years later to vent about girls isn't hitting rock bottom I don't know what is.

There is a night, the events that led up to it as much a blur as they were overshadowed by the aftermath, where she falls into your bed. Utterly exhausted, physically at her limit, and looking like shit, her hair fans out over your pillows in a way that looks nothing like you imagined. She looks like a ragged mess, hair matted and sitting weirdly in the way it does when it’s been in a ponytail for too long.

She looks nothing like the fantasy you entertained back when you first met her, back before you gave up hoping.

She just looks like Kate.

Somehow, that’s better.

 

“Unzip me?” Her voice is slurred, not in the 3am call where she repeatedly tells you she loves you and you are the best friend ever in the whole wide world while you yell at her to get a cab and go home way, but the purely drained way. “America? C’mon, help me out. I think this thing is stuck…” You can see from where you stand, still kind of frozen in the centre of the room like a stranger in your own home, that it is not stuck. She is just laying on part of the zipper. “You’re hopeless.” You grumble, because you don’t know what else to say, but you eventually move to her anyway (slowly, as if you don’t naturally gravitate towards her), shoving her up onto her side and fiddling with the zipper too gently.

 

When it budges, she doesn’t make to take over and it’s the worst thing ever. Undressing her is what you imagine it’s like to clean up broken glass. You’re never sure how much you’re allowed to touch, your fingers flinching when they get too close to her bare skin as a nauseating reminder that it doesn’t matter how often you do normal friend stuff, it’s always going to be a little bit weird. When she sits up to shimmy out of her suit, your eyes avert automatically. You don’t pay attention to the bumps of her spine when she leans forwards to pull off her boots, or the bruising around the hollows of her collarbones when she scruffs her hair up into a messy bun. You ignore the comfortable thud and weight on the mattress next to you when she slumps back down in her underwear. A normal friend would compliment her choice of bra. A lover might try to remove it. You settle somewhere in between, throwing a shirt at her from your collection on the floor and laughing at the noise she makes when it lands on her face. “ _Hopeless_.” You repeat, and you’re glad when she starts laughing too. For a moment at least, you’re on exactly the same page.

 

She sleeps under the covers while you sleep on top. You say it’s because you get hot easily. She falls asleep almost instantly while you stare at the ceiling for hours, trying not to be angry at her for things that aren’t hers, yours, or anyone else’s fault and failing miserably, eventually settling on being angry at yourself because there’s comfort in routine. Around 2am she stirs, rolling over and blinking at you with drowsy eyes. She’s half-asleep enough for you to let yourself ruffle her hair, mumbling a barely audible “…Go t’sleep, Princess.”, smiling when she wrinkles her nose at the nickname.

“…Love you.” She mumbles. “Love you.”

It makes your stomach lurch. For a split-second the anger is back because it shouldn’t be that easy for her to say something that tears you apart like that. It shouldn’t be possible for her to love you in one way and not the other when you’re stuck navigating your way through both. You know she loves you, of course you do. She loves you and knowing how much you were hurting because of her would destroy her. That’s why she can’t.

Kate reaches up and pats your cheek, and just as suddenly as it was there the anger is gone. “Love you too,” You mumble. “Now go to sleep.”

 

Her eyes flutter shut, fingers still on your face. You let yourself watch her sleep for a while, wondering how of all the Kate Bishops in all the universes in the multiverse you managed to fall in love with one that will never love you back, and assuring yourself that eventually it will get easier to deal with the idea that it’s a question that you might never find the answer to.

 

Tomorrow, you will get up and save the world, again.

Whatever you do out there will not define your strength as much the willpower it’s taking not to kiss her goodnight.


End file.
